The Columbian Exchange ranks among my favorite historical topics I used to teach. I regard it as the most important event combining biology and history in the modern world. Only a handful of events in all of history can even compare in importance. Similar candidates include the industrial revolution, the major world religions, perhaps the […]
Tag: christopher columbus
Colombo, Caboto, and the Importance of Names
It might be safe to write that every American ever born knows the name Christopher Columbus. When I used to teach American History to college students, the combination of Columbus and 1492 was one of two things I assumed every student knew about history. (The other? The name of the current president. Which, come to […]
The Martin Luther King Holiday
For those of us who remember personally or have read and studied about Dr. King’s life and legacy, it is an amazing story of American courage and perseverance. It is fitting, perhaps, that the story of why we have a Martin Luther King holiday dedicated to his memory is also a story worth telling. Congress […]